A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention is directed to messaging systems, and more particularly, to universal messaging systems that integrate a voice (and possibly also fax) messaging platform with an electronic mail messaging platform to provide universal access to a subscriber""s voice, fax, and e-mail messages from either a Web client, such as a Web browser, or a traditional telephone handset session on the voice mail platform.
So-called xe2x80x9cUniversal Messagingxe2x80x9d systems are an attempt to combine traditional voice and fax messaging capabilities with electronic mail (xe2x80x9ce-mailxe2x80x9d) capabilities. One approach to providing a universal messaging system is to integrate an existing voice and/or fax messaging platform (hereinafter xe2x80x9cvoice messaging platformxe2x80x9d) with an existing e-mail messaging platform. Each platform retains its own message store, but the system integrates those stores so that a subscriber can access all of the subscriber""s voice, fax and e-mail messages from a single interface. Universal messaging systems typically provide access to messages from either a Web client, such as a Web browser, or a traditional telephone handset.
Many telephone companies today provide voice messaging services to their respective telephone customers. Such services typically are provided by a large-scale voice messaging platform, such as the Network Applications Platform (NAP) available from Unisys Corporation, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, which is capable of providing voice and fax messaging capabilities to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Recently, with the advent of the Internet and the World-Wide-Web (xe2x80x9cthe Webxe2x80x9d), e-mail messaging has become in many cases as popular, if not more popular, than traditional voice messaging. Telephone companies would therefore like to be able to offer their customers a universal messaging solution that gives those customers a common point of access to both voice and e-mail messaging services.
Integrated universal messaging solutions are particularly attractive to telephone companies, because the existing voice messaging system of the telephone company can be integrated with a separate e-mail messaging platform without having to displace or replace the voice messaging system. A telephone company can choose to host the e-mail messaging platform itself, or to partner with an internet service provider (ISP) that already has an existing e-mail messaging platform. With an integrated universal messaging solution, the telephone company can then provide a new service (universal access to both e-mail and voice messages) to a subset of its existing voice messaging subscriber base without impacting the remainder of its subscriber base. Thus, an integrated universal messaging solution protects the telephone company""s investment in its voice messaging system by adding to it instead of replacing it.
Integrated universal messaging systems usually provide message access via both a Web browser interface and a traditional telephony user interface (i.e., via a telephone handset). With the Web browser interface, a subscriber logs into the universal messaging system via an Internet connection and is presented with a single view of all voice, fax, and e-mail messages. E-mail messages are retrieved and displayed in the typical manner. Voice messages are typically retrieved as audio files that are then played over the subscriber""s computer audio system by a Web browser plug-in or the like. With the telephony user interface (TUI), the subscriber is able to call into the voice messaging platform in the usual manner and to obtain a count of all waiting voice, fax, and e-mail messages. For example, the subscriber may hear a prompt such as xe2x80x9cyou have  less than n greater than  voice messages, and  less than x greater than  e-mails in your mailboxxe2x80x9d. The subscriber can listen to voice messages in the usual manner. For e-mail messages, the caller may be presented with the time and date of a message, the message size, and the number of attachments. Additionally, the sender and subject lines of an e-mail message may automatically be converted from text-to-speech and played back to the subscriber. If requested by the subscriber, the main body of the e-mail message may also be converted from text-to-speech and played to the caller.
In order to provide a subscriber with e-mail message status and content via a telephone handset in an integrated universal messaging solution, the TUI of the voice messaging platform must not only manage the session with the voice messaging platform, but also must manage the session with the e-mail messaging platform. One problem with managing both sessions is that these two environments have historically provided very different user experiences. Users of voice messaging systems have become accustomed to very fast, almost real-time responses for retrieval and playback of voice messages and are likely to hang up if forced to wait even several seconds for an operation to complete. On the contrary, because access to e-mail messages and other information over a network, such as the Internet, is inherently more prone to access delays, delays in retrieving an e-mail message from an e-mail client or Web browser are much more tolerated (and even expected) by those who use e-mail and the Web regularly and are accustomed to such delays. Consequently, there is a need for methods and apparatus that improve the coordination of telephony handset sessions with e-mail messaging sessions in integrated universal messaging systems and that help to bridge the gap between user experiences in both environments. The present invention addresses this need.
The present invention is directed to methods and apparatus for coordinating a telephony session on a voice messaging platform with an e-mail session on an e-mail messaging platform in an integrated universal messaging system in a manner that bridges the gap between user experiences in the two different environments.
A method of the present invention comprises the steps of: (a) receiving a call on the voice messaging platform placed by a subscriber from a telephone handset and processing the call on the voice messaging platform in accordance with a first call flow; (b) invoking from the first call flow, a second call flow that initiates access to the subscriber""s account on the e-mail messaging platform, the second call flow executing in parallel with, and asynchronously of, the first call flow; (c) continuing to execute the first call flow while the second call flow is executing; and (d) playing one or more prompts by the first call flow, as needed, to mask at least a portion of any delays experienced in receiving a response from the second call flow. The step of invoking the second call flow from the first call flow can be made in response to a specific request for access from the subscriber, or it can be made automatically by the first call flow on behalf of the subscriber. Additionally, a telephony session identifier is created that identifies the subscriber""s session on the voice messaging platform, and an e-mail session identifier is created that identifies the corresponding session on the e-mail messaging platform. An association is maintained between the telephony session identifier and the e-mail session identifier to enable the two sessions to be coordinated. According to another feature of the invention, a timestamp is generated each time access to the subscriber""s e-mail account is initiated by the first call flow. The timestamp is passed with the request for access so that it can be returned with any response provided by the second call flow. When a response is received, the timestamp returned in the response is compared to the original timestamp passed with the request to ensure that the response provided by the second call flow corresponds to that particular request of the first call flow. The telephony session identifier may also be passed with the request and used in combination with the timestamp to verify the response.
A universal messaging system in accordance with the present invention comprises a voice messaging platform interfaced to a telephone network, an application executing on the voice messaging platform that comprises at least a first call flow and a second call flow, an e-mail platform comprising an e-mail server connected to a network external to the telephone network, and an interface component connected to the external network that provides access to the e-mail server via the external network upon request from the voice messaging platform. The application executing on the voice messaging platform processes calls received by the voice messaging platform from subscribers in accordance with the first call flow. Selected subscribers of the voice messaging platform have respective accounts on the e-mail server. According to the present invention, the first call flow invokes the second call flow to initiate access to a subscriber account on the e-mail messaging platform, and the second call flow thereafter executes in parallel with, and asynchronously of, the first call flow. The second call flow then interacts with the interface component to access the subscriber account on the e-mail server of the e-mail messaging platform. The first call flow continues to execute while the second call flow is executing and plays one or more prompts, as needed, to mask at least a portion of any delays experienced in receiving a response from the second call flow. The first call flow invokes the second call flow either (i) in response to a request by the subscriber for access to the subscriber""s account on the e-mail messaging platform or (ii) automatically on behalf of the subscriber.
Preferably, the voice messaging platform of the universal messaging system creates a telephony session identifier associated with a subscriber""s session on the voice messaging platform, and the interface component creates an e-mail session identifier associated with accesses to the e-mail messaging platform for that subscriber during the subscriber""s session on the voice messaging platform. The voice messaging platform maintains an association between the telephony session identifier and the respective e-mail session identifier.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, the application executing on the voice messaging platform generates a timestamp at the time that access to a subscriber""s e-mail account is initiated by the first call flow. The timestamp is then passed to the second call flow so that it can be returned by the second call flow in any response provided to the first call flow. When the application receives a response from the second call flow, it compares a timestamp returned with the response to the original timestamp generated by the application to ensure that the response provided by the second call flow corresponds to the particular access initiated by the first call flow. The telephony session identifier may also be passed with the request and used in combination with the timestamp to verify the response.
Additional features and advantages of the present invention will become evident hereinafter.